Hi, all have a question regarding my oem sail the mylar material is delaminated as to were you can pull it off in chunks. If i were to peal off all the mylar would the sail still be usable, on one side there no mylar the otherside there is so why just oneside. I do have a squaretop that i use but was wondering if i peeled it off if i could use or would it tear theres no holes in the fabric.Thanks

A sail maker cuts shape into the sail to give it effect. As the wind blows he wants a material that works to hold his design shape. Laminating Mylar onto Dacron increased the stability of the material resulting in better performance. It is only necessary to laminate one side. If the Mylar separates off the Dacron, performance of the sail drops sharply, and increasingly as the wind increases.Removing the Mylar won't help, especially if it is still limiting the amount of stretch to some extent.I don't know of any practical solution; if there is one out there I would really like to hear about it...Depending on conditions (not too windy) the sail probably good for cruising, especially downwind .

As stated above, the mylar is critical to "locking in" the shape of the sail and providing structure. These sails are basically a composite of dacron and mylar in much the same way that your hulls are a composite of fiberglass cloth and polyester resin. You take away one of the elements of the composite and the whole part suffers.

Yea, you'll probably still be able to hoist the sail and go out and cruise around in light wind, but your sail is going to be a total bag and may even come apart in higher wind. Sorry to say, but your sail is toast. By the way, if its a stars and stripes sail, then it's at least 20 years old, so I'd say you got your money's worth out of it.

If you do not race you might want to look into an aftermarket sail that is not a mylar laminate. The OEM on my 2000 H17Sport started to delaminate in 2003. I replaced it with a Pentex square top sail in 2004 that I still use today (I get out on the water 40+ days a season) and in a local regatta 2 weeks ago I blew past a veteran H17 racer who had a new OEM sail (4 out of 4 races, it wasn't even close). Of course it did not count because they had to put me in an open class due to my unfair advantage. It was still fun being the fastest boat out there.